He ran his hands down her spine and cupped her bottom. “Ready?”
She nodded, gasping, not sure what he was planning, but willing to go along with it.
He lifted her, and she felt her thighs drag against a thrusting male hardness. He turned and laid her back onto her mother’s high, soft bed. A heavy bulge pushed against the fabric of his undergarments. She was naked to his gaze; she wanted to see him naked, too.
She reached for his shirt again, but he caught her hands and kissed her palms, lingeringly, one at a time. She shuddered delicately, and her fingers curled involuntarily around his jaw, cupping his face, as if holding the kiss in her hand. Who knew that the center of your palm could be so sensitive?
He pressed her back on the bed, his mouth devouring her while his big, warm hands slid over her ribs, down her hips, and up again, caressing her in a ceaseless hypnotic rhythm. Wherever he touched her, hot ripples flowed inside her, gathering in a place deep within her.
And all the time she felt the hot, heavy hardness of him pressing at her center.
He cupped her breasts, teasing the nipples with his fingers until she cried out with the frustration of it, not really knowing what she wanted until his hot mouth closed over one breast and sucked, and she gasped, arched, and shuddered violently, clutching his hair and holding him close.
He paused, and her eyes fluttered open. She was dazed, gasping for air, and she saw a gleam of white as he smiled.He was panting, too, and yet he was still almost fully clothed. She wanted to feel him, feel him against her, skin to skin.
“Please,” she heard herself moan. “Please.”
He pulled back. “No… not yet,” he panted thickly. His eyes burning into hers, he unfastened his cotton drawers and kicked them off.
She reached for his shirt. His mouth closed over her other breast, and she almost screamed as a kind of lightning flashed through her. She grabbed his shoulders and held him tightly, but it wasn’t enough, so she opened her thighs and wrapped them around him. She writhed beneath him, wanting to get closer, aching for more.
He moaned. Kissing and nipping the soft skin of her stomach, he slowly worked his way down her quivering body until his fingers slid through the hair at the base of her stomach, and between the folds, caressing her there until she could hardly bear it.
She moaned and lifted herself, pushing against his fingers. “Now, Luke, now,” she panted.
And then he parted her and placed his mouth on her and she lost all control. Her body wasn’t her own. Each time his mouth moved, she quivered and shuddered with helpless pleasure. It built and built until she thought she would burst, and just when she thought she could stand it no more, he lifted his mouth off her and entered her in one long, smooth thrust.
She panted, pulling him closer, wrapping her legs tighter around him as he thrust into her again and again. With each thrust, deep convulsions racked her, and she didn’t know where she ended and he began as she shattered and screamed and plunged into oblivion.
Bella wasn’t sure how long it was before she drifted back to full awareness. She could tell by the shadows on the curtains that the sun had moved quite a bit, so she must have slept for a while.
Luke had pulled the covers over them both. She lay with her head on his chest, his arm around her.
She stretched, feeling like a very satisfied cat. And laughed.
“What is it?” Luke murmured.
“Mama was wrong,” she said. “It is exactly like animals. I was like a cat in heat there, and you—” She broke off.
“And I?” he prompted. “Though I ought to know better than to ask.”
She smiled and rubbed her cheek against the fabric of his shirt like the cat who ate the cream. “You were a stallion.”
She felt him laugh, rather than heard it, a deep vibration of his chest.
“So, I’ve graduated from being a rat?”
That reminded her. “You did make provision for me in your will, didn’t you?”
“Not a single penny do you receive from me,” he said softly.
But she wasn’t deceived. She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “But I won’t be dependent on your mother and sister, will I?”
His eyes gleamed. “No.”
“I knew before dinner it was a lie.” She lay back down on his chest and idly twirled a small curl of chest hair that peeked from the neck of his shirt.
He stroked her shoulder. “How did you know?”
